National Identity vs. European Identity: A False Choice
The debate is usually framed as a zero-sum competition: more European identity means less French identity, less Polish identity, less Greek identity. This framing drives most of the political conflict around EU integration and produces a considerable amount of heat without much light.
It is also empirically wrong. Surveys of European publics consistently find that strong national identity and meaningful European identity coexist without much tension in the majority of respondents. The person who feels deeply Austrian and meaningfully European is not a rare moderate between two poles — she is the modal European, the typical case that the polarized debate systematically ignores.
The confusion arises because the political entrepreneurs of both sides need the zero-sum frame. Nationalists need European identity to be a threat to national belonging, because that framing mobilizes fear. Federalists sometimes need national identity to be a retrograde obstacle, because that framing mobilizes progressive sentiment. Both need the other to be more extreme than it actually is.
The more accurate description is nested belonging. The Bavarian is Bavarian, German, and European in different registers, for different purposes, with different emotional charges. These do not compete because they operate at different scales and address different questions. The Bavarian identity tells you what food you eat at Christmas and what football club you support. The German identity tells you what language you dream in and what historical responsibility you carry. The European identity tells you what kind of political and legal civilization you inhabit and what distinguishes it from its alternatives.
Federalists who want to replace the national with the European are asking the wrong question. The correct ambition is to make all three levels function well simultaneously — which requires taking national identity seriously as a real thing that must be accommodated, not a prejudice to be overcome.